A Deeper Look into Mulholland Dr. (2001)

Mulholland Dr. is one of the most enigmatic and elusive movie of the decade and has left countless viewers feeling confused, baffled, stunned or even cheated and angry. Many have asked how such cryptic piece of non-sense could even be considered as art. Mulholland Dr. is like a puzzle with many pieces that do not fit anywhere. It is a fact of life that David Lynch’s movies are not for everyone: They require multiple and highly focused viewing and simply are too “open” for interpretation for some people. David Foster Wallace stated perfectly why Lynch’s movies are so polarizing:

David Lynch’s movies are often described as occupying a kind of middle ground between art film and commercial film. But what they really occupy is a whole third kind of territory. Most of Lynch’s best films don’t really have much of a point, and in lots of ways they seem to resist the film-interpretative process by which movies’ (certainly avant-garde movies’) central points are understood. This is something the British critic Paul Taylor seems to get at when he says that Lynch’s movies are “to be experienced rather than explained.” Lynch’s movies are indeed susceptible to a variety of sophisticated interpretations, but it would be a serious mistake to conclude from this that his movies point at the too-facile summation that “film interpretation is necessarily multivalent” or something-they’re just not that kind of movie. Nor are they seductive, though, at least in the commercial sense of being comfortable or linear or High Concept or “feel-good.” You almost never from a Lynch movie get the sense that the point is to “entertain” you, and never that the point is to get you to fork over money to see it. This is one of the unsettling things about a Lynch movie: You don’t feel like you’re entering into any of the standard unspoken and/or unconscious contracts you normally enter into with other kinds of movies. This is unsettling because in the absence of such an unconscious contract we lose some of the psychic protections we normally (and necessarily) bring to bear on a medium as powerful as film. That is, if we know on some level what a movie wants from us, we can erect certain internal defenses that let us choose how much of ourselves we give away to it. The absence of point or recognizable agenda in Lynch’s films, though, strips these subliminal defenses and lets Lynch get inside your head in a way movies normally don’t. This is why his best films’ effects are often so emotional and nightmarish. (We’re defenseless in our dreams too.)

It is impossible to talk in-depth about Mulholland Dr. without fully spoiling the movie so please do not read past this paragraph if you haven’t seen the movie yet. If you would like to read my nearly spoiler-free review of the movie, you can go ahead and read my earlier review. In this post, I will delve deeper into the world of Mulholland Dr. and some of the possible interpretations as well as take a closer look at the numerous themes of this incredibly multi-layered movie.

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Dream and Reality: The Most Straightforward Interpretation

Mulholland Dr. unfolds non-linearly and it is initially difficult to distinguish the “real” chronological order of the story. The film starts very oddly and then seems to be quite straightforward until the blue box is opened.  Until that point, the viewer has no reason to believe that what he/she is seeing is not real. David Lynch then drops the audience on its head without any warning, mixing hallucinations with present and past “reality” and shifting numerous characters’ identity. There is several related interpretations of the time-line and it is really up to each viewer to put the pieces back together but the following is the most popular interpretation of the movie explained in a linear fashion from the moment Diane wakes up which I consider as the “present”.

Diane Selwyn (Naomi Watts) is a Canadian aspiring actress from Deep River, Ontario who won a jitterbug contest and moved to Los Angeles to achieve her dream of becoming a Hollywood actress. This, however, never really materialized and she is now a disillusioned and failed actress getting by with occasional and insignificant roles and living in a decrepit apartment at Sierra Bonita. The straw that breaks the camel’s back though is the fact that she was humiliated and dumped by her lover Camilla Rhodes (Laura Elena Harring), another starlet who, unlike Diane, was able to become a rather successful actress. Diane met Camilla Rhodes, at some point after she arrived in LA and the two struck a friendship that soon turned into a full-blown intimate relationship. Diane literally became fixated with Camilla. As it becomes apparent in her dream, Diane believes that Camilla was able to become successful because she was willing to sleep around in exchange for parts in movies and Camilla would in turn help Diane get small roles in her movies (more on that later). The entire movie rest on the assumption that Diane hires a hitman to kill Camilla sometime after the party humiliation. She then returns to her apartment and falls asleep at which point she starts dreaming (the first 100 minutes of the movie). When Diane wakes up from her dream, Camilla has already been killed as shown by the presence of the blue key on the coffee table. What unfolds afterward are a torrent of flashbacks and hallucinations as Diane is having terrible remorse. Diane mentally degenerates dramatically in her last few hours and kills herself later that night in a terror induced frenzy.

The Dream

I will now take a deeper look into the main body of the film, Diane’s “dream” which is fully interconnected with  numerous strands of reality. Every important elements that appear in the last part of the movie are also present in her dream. The dream is her subconscious way to cope with her terrible misdeed by fantasizing about the way she would have wanted her life to unfold instead.

The movie opens up with the aforementioned jitterbug contest and then the falling into the pillow scene which is presumably there to signal Diane falling asleep. In this dream, Camilla (aka Rita) escapes from the murder attempt which occurs on Mulholland Dr. Notice that this scene unfolds in similar fashion to that unexpected stop Diane was subject to on her way to the wrap-up party at the director’s house. Camilla narrowly escapes being killed and hides inside Aunt Ruth’s apartment but she is now amnesiac and a completely blank and dependent canvas that Diane (she will be referred as Betty from this point on) can mold and shape to her own liking. Aunt Ruth leaves for a vacation in Canada while Rita falls asleep under a kitchen table.

The next scene is the “monster behind Winkies” sequence. A young man talks about a terrifying recurring dream he has been having to another man who seems to be his psychiatrist. He describes his nightmare in which he goes in the alley behind Winkies and comes face to face with a monster with an horrific face. As he speaks, he suddenly realizes that his nightmare is actually unfolding. He goes behind the diner and it is really there. Unspeakably terrorized, the young man collapses dead (therapist checks pulse). This sequence may allude to the demons Diane unleashed by ordering a hit on Camilla at that location. This is a somewhat problematic and ambiguous scene so I will come back to it later.

Betty soon arrives in LA escorted by an elderly couple that she doesn’t seem to know too well. This elderly couple reappears at the end of the movie to haunt Diane. They have a creepy grin that is literally set in stone on their face. We are introduced to Betty who is everything that Diane wants to be, or may have been when she first arrived in LA: Perky, hopeful, innocent, kind and enthusiastic. Betty immediately heads for Aunt Ruth’s apartment, saying goodbye to the elderly couple who continue to grin mischievously long afterward.

Director Adam Kesher is then introduced into the narrative. This tidbit has some welcome comic relief but is also ripe with information. If you understand that Diane is in love with Camilla and that she is a failed actress then everything that happens to Kesher should appear to make sense. Diane dreams up a revenge on the director, not only because she sees him as the one who took Camilla away from her, but also because she seems him as a symbol of what she thinks is wrong with the movie industry. She was not able to become a successful actress because of behind-the-scene manipulations and conspiracies. Kesher witnesses his wife cheat on him, gets beaten up and kicked out of his own house and has his movie and money taken away from him by shadowy figures.  We also learn that Kesher is being coerced into casting an unknown actress, named Camilla Rhodes, by mysterious mobsters.

Betty finds a dazed and confused Rita in the apartment and the two become instant friends as Betty decides to help the helpless Rita. They find $50,000 in Rita’s purse as well as a mysterious blue key. The analogy here is pretty clear. The money refers to the cash that Diane paid to the hitman and the blue key is what she received in return after the hit was completed. Later that night, the creepy blue lady makes her apparition. She senses that something is “terribly wrong” and reminds the audience that a dark undercurrent is seething below the surface of the story. Rita later recalls the name “Diane Selwyn” when she is served a waitress named Diane in Winkies. Notice that this scene is quite similar to the one at the end when Diane notices the name of the waitress at Winkies, Betty… The two women find Diane Selwyn’s phone number in the phone book and call her. Betty exclaims about how odd it is to calling oneself on the phone.

A little later, Betty is seen practicing for an audition that Aunt Ruth set up for her. The script is atrocious and the “acting” by Betty is even worse. This is then contrasted by the audition in which Betty is simply spectacular, turning the  same pathetic dialogue into a jaw-dropping scene: The perfect showcase of great acting talent and some may ask: “Where the Hell did that come from?” A casting agent then takes Betty to meet Adam Kesher on the set of “The Sylvia North Story” as he is auditioning actresses for the lead role of the movie. The two exchanges long looks from afar and Adam suddenly realizes she is the actress he has wanted all along but Betty suddenly runs away. Camilla Rhodes appears and Kesher reluctantly says “This is the girl.” This entire sequence is extremely important in the film because it points several important things out: Betty feels that she has the talent to be a good actress but believes that a conspiracy to cast another actress prevented her from getting her first lead role. She runs away possibly because she is unable to confront the truth. Additionally, some viewers will have noticed that the performances in the movie up to the audition seem forced and quite below average, a powerful hint from David Lynch that what we are watching is possibly not real.

Betty and Rita head to Diane Selwyn’s address to investigate. No one is there so they break into the apartment which happens to be at Sierra Bonita, in the same apartment (#17) that Diane occupies in reality. Inside, they discover the dead body of a blond woman. Again, there is a very important information revealed here. Since we have seen the movie, we now know that the dead body might be Diane’s corpse but look closer. She is resting in the same position as when Diane kills herself but she is wearing Rita’s black dress. What exactly does this mean? Can Diane already dream about her own dead body? Why is Betty not as terrified as Rita? The two women return to Aunt Ruth’s apartment. Betty cuts off Rita’s dark hairs and replaces them with a blond wig so that Rita and Betty now look alike. Remember the dead body was a blond woman with a black dress. Why does Rita want to look like the dead body? Is Diane unconsciously trying to fight her own fate by shifting the death to Rita/Camilla?

The two women go to bed and make love. More than a voyeuristic spectacle, this scene is the turning point of Mulholland Dr. Rita wakes up at 2AM, repeating the word “Silencio” over and over again as if she was in an hypnotic trance. She regains consciousness and insists upon visiting an eerie theater called Club Silencio. Betty and Rita watch a disquieting spectacle bathed in blue light as a performer explains that everything is an illusion. A singer starts singing and then collapses but the voice keeps singing. This sequence is usually where most viewers start getting very confused. The Club Silencio sequence is not only a message to the sleeping Diane that everything she has just fantasized about is just an illusion, it’s also a message to the audience to tell them that everything they just saw was completely fake, an illusion.

Betty finds a blue box in her purse, with a keyhole that fits Rita’s blue key. The two women rush home to unlock the box but upon retrieving the blue key in the bedroom, Rita discovers that Betty has vanished. Rita inserts the key into the blue box and opens it. There is nothing inside the box, only darkness. The camera zooms into the box and passes through. The box falls to the ground with a thump. Aunt Ruth hears the noise and comes inside the bedroom to take a look. Rita and the box have disappeared. This sequence there is the most problematic in this interpretation because it doesn’t seem to be explainable, at least not in a satisfying way.

The dream is now fading. A blond woman is laying on the bed in the exact same position as the corpse. The Cowboy appears in the doorway and says “Hey, pretty girl. Time to wake up”. The scene cuts back to the bed, and we now see Diane’s dead body in the same position. The body morphs back into Diane’s sleeping body.

Diane wakes up…

Reality

Diane is awaken by knocks at her door. It’s her neighbor who wants to recover her belongings and her ashtray. We see a blue key on the coffee table. Diane sees it and realizes Camilla must be dead. Distraught, she goes into the kitchen and has an hallucination. She sees a vision of Camilla and appears relieved, saying “Camilla! You’ve come back.” The scene cuts and Diane is now suddenly making coffee where Camilla was standing. This is usually the sequence where everyone is now wondering what the f*** is going on??! If that’s not enough, Diane’s mind suddenly flashes back to the past: Camilla is naked on the sofa and the topless Diane comes to join her (note the coffee cup has morphed into a glass of liquor.) It looks like the two women are about to have another steamy love-making scene when Camilla suddenly pushes Diane away and tells her that they “shouldn’t do this anymore.”

The scene suddenly cuts and we have another flashback. The action takes place in a completely different location on the set of a movie directed by Adam Kesher. Camilla is the lead actress while Diane has a minor role. Camilla insists that Diane stays while Kesher demonstrates to an actor how to kiss Camilla. Diane is humiliated and deeply hurt. Some time later, Camilla comes to Diane’s apartment but the two have a fight. Diane masturbates maniacally with no pleasure.

The phone rings. Another flashback. The following sequence is the most important one in the movie because this is where we learn about Diane’s past as well as meet most of the people that populate her dream. Some time after the fight, Camilla calls Diane and invites her to a party at the director’s house on Mulholland Dr. Diane takes a limousine up the winding road but the limo stops unexpectedly before its destination. Diane is startled but Camilla had it all planned so she could meet Diane at that spot and take her through a romantic shortcut in the woods. Diane is charmed and ecstatic that her lover would be so considerate of her. At the dinner party, Diane reveals that she won a jitterbug contest, that her Aunt Ruth died and left her some money, and that she met Camilla on the set of “The Sylvia North Story”. Camilla is in Adam Kesher’s arms all evening. Much worse though is the fact a blond woman, who plays Camilla in Diane’s dream, walks up to Camilla and both kiss passionately. Diane is humiliated. At some point after the party, Diane meets with the hitman at Winkies, encounters the waitress named Betty, and exchange looks with Dan, the young man who has the recurring nightmare. She gives the hitman the picture of Camilla Rhodes, saying “this is the girl.” She seals her fate by giving him the money, he tells her about the blue key.

It’s dark but not nighttime yet. The monster is now there, behind Winkies. It puts the blue box into a plastic bag and sets it on the ground. Miniature versions of Diane’s grandparents climb out of the blue box, they are laughing maniacally and are heading somewhere.

We are finally back to the present. Diane is sitting on the couch, staring at the blue key, probably since she made that cup of coffee earlier in the day. Someone is pounding on the door. Diane sees her shrunken grandparents come through the underside of her front door. They are laughing maniacally and growing back to their normal size, chasing her. In utter horror, she runs to her bedroom, grabs a gun from her drawer and shoots herself in the mouth. Her lifeless body is resting in the exact same position I have repeatedly describe before. Smoke and blue light flood her bedroom. Cut to the alley behind Winkies, the Monster seems to be smiling. An image of a smiling Diane and Camilla bathed in white light appears. Finally, we are back in Club Silencio, a woman with blue hair whispers: “Silencio.”

Alternative Interpretations

There is numerous problems with this main interpretation of the movie however and this is where the really fun part begins. If you have seen any of David Lynch’s films previously, you know the above interpretation is a bit too straightforward. There is many loose ends that just don’t fit. Below, I will highlight a few alternative interpretations as food for thoughts.

Reality and Nightmare

This is the complete opposite of the main interpretation of the film. The first two-third of the movie is real while the end is a nightmare. Nearly everything in the first 100 minutes is taken as face value. This interpretation is not as satisfying though, given all the themes and elements highlighted above.

Pandora’s Box

In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman created by the Gods. She was given a jar by Zeus and ordered to never open it. Out of curiosity, Pandora opened the jar, releasing all terrible things such as evil, diseases and misery on mankind. The blue box could be seen as a Pandora’s box. Notice that once the blue box was unlocked, everything unravels at the seams. Betty/Diane is not a nice, optimistic girl anymore. She is a dirty, slutty, disillusioned and jealous woman. The apartment is not Aunt Ruth’s bright and cozy dwelling but a seedy bungalow in Sierra Bonita. The Monster behind Winkies is there, possibly the Devil himself? A very elegant interpretation that I like very much.

Parallel Universes and Doppelgängers

There is a strong theme of double identities in Mulholland Dr. and I will take it one step farther. A doppelganger is the ghostly double of a living person and in some mythologies, seeing one own’s doppelganger is an omen of death.

“Somewhere, in a parallel universe, your evil twin exists. Identical to you in every physical attribute, its mind is twisted, evil and hell-bent on destruction; it is everything you are not. Occasionally a doppelganger stumbles upon a portal into our universe, and there are many twins living quietly among us, their powers weakened by the Earth. However, if by chance your twin should cross your path and make eye contact with you, his evil will be unleashed.”

Aside from the obvious (Betty and Rita see the dead body who is a mixture of both of them), remember when Betty puts a blond wig on Rita so that both of them now look alike. Betty is now not only Diane’s doppelganger but Rita’s is as well. Betty was an innocent, optimistic woman until then. The movie starts to unravel from that point on. We see Betty crying and shaking uncontrollably in the Club Silencio sequence. She finds the blue box in her purse. Betty and Rita soon vanish into thin air (parallel universe?). In the “real” world, Camilla has died and Diane is soon to kill herself. A creepy interpretation but this would not surprise me since David Lynch has been fascinated with this theme.

A Dream within a Dream

A solid argument can be made that the last part of the movie is also a dream, or rather a nightmare within the other dream. Diane lives in a run-down bungalow. Where would she find the money to hire a hitman? Why would Camilla, a successful actress even hang out with a destitute failed actress? The last sequence of the movie is extremely surreal. We also get a glimpse of a blue box inside the drawer when Diane reaches for the revolver. The blue box was present only in her dream. We assume that everything that happens before Club Silencio is an illusion but what if everything after it is also an illusion? I think this is a very solid interpretation but then we have to ask who’s dream is it? All signs point to Diane but what if it is Camilla or a even third party?

Split Personalities

Betty and Rita are two personalities of Diane, her light and dark side. Diane wants to distance herself from her dark side so she can be like Betty. Despite her every attempt, Diane starts to realize is she is more Rita than Betty, she even tries to make Rita look like Betty. Once Betty and Rita are about to open the box, Betty disappears and only her dark side remains. We could also take it one step further and say that Camilla is also a split personality of Diane.

The Winkie’s scenes are real, the Monster is behind it all

One of the last scene of the movie is key in this theory since we see that the Monster does exist outside of Diane’s dream. Is the first scene with Dan going behind Winkies not part of Diane’s dream? Who is the monster? Camilla’s ghost? The Devil?

Camilla survives the hit

Camilla survives the hit but doesn’t remember anything. Diane thinks that Camilla is dead since the blue key is on her coffee table. She has the flashbacks and hallucinations and kills herself. Camilla/Rita stumbles into Coco’s property which may look familiar to her since Coco’s is her future mother-in-law. She falls asleep under the table and dreams about Betty and Rita. She starts recovering her memory and when she opens the blue box in the dream, she remembers everything and wakes up.

Möbius Strip

A Möbius Strip is a twisted band that has no beginning or end, along which a snake could crawl around the entire surface forever without ever having to cross an edge. In a film, this would be akin to a never-ending story. There is no doubt that Mulholland Dr. is constructed like a Möbius Strip as Diane arranges a murder on Camilla near the end of the film  that unfolds at the start of the movie. Is Mulholland Dr. a true never ending story?

All reality

Why not just take everything at face value? The beginning is Diane’s recollection of the past while the last part of the movie is the present.

Some Additional Themes of Mulholland Dr.

Hollywood: Manipulation, Broken dreams

The theme of behind-the-scenes Hollywood manipulation has a very strong presence in Mulholland Dr. The shadowy figures may represent studio executives, the people “upstairs” who control the non-creative aspect of film-making and constantly attempt to interfere with the creative aspect of movies. It’s also not a secret that sleeping around might help advance some women’s career and not just in the movie industry. Is this a personal experience of David Lynch that happens in real life or simply a convenient excuse for Diane to cope with her inability to acknowledge her own failures? Thousands of people try to get into the movie industry every year, Hollywood spits the vast majority of them back bitterly disillusioned and broken, just like Diane Selwyn.

Everything we see is an illusion

David Lynch keeps peeling the layers of illusions in Mulholland Dr. Everything we see in the first 100 minutes is not real. Maybe even the entire movie is not real and just a dream within a dream. Moreover, all we are watching in a movie are imaginary people doing imaginary things on screen. It’s all an illusion. This extends to Hollywood which is depicted as a bright, dreamy place with a dark and terrifying back alley. We can go back to the Club Silencio sequence: This is Hollywood at night, dark and eerie. Most people have this glamorized vision of Hollywood but Lynch is stating that it’s all an illusion.

Great acting does exist

The audition sequence definitely shows that David Lynch believes in the power of great acting talent. Before that scene, all the performance were all a little too flat or over the top as if the actors were people picked off the streets and trying to act for the first time. The audition comes and we realize it was all an intentional trick, Betty can not only act but she is supremely talented. Kudos to Naomi Watts for a fantastic performance in the film.

Questions to Ponder

• What does the Blue Box represent? The truth?
• Who is the Cowboy? He says “Wake up pretty girl” to Diane’s dead body. Why?
• The Monster is a representation of broken dreams? The Devil? Dead Camilla?
• What do the grand-parents represent?
• Was Diane sexually abused during her childhood? Is she a call-girl in real life?
• Why does the hitman laugh when Diane asks about the Blue Key?
• The Color Blue is omnipresent. What does it represent?
• Who is the woman with blue hairs in Club Silencio?
• Two Men in the Car: Shortly before the audition scene, we see two men rolling by in a black car. Lynch actually intentionally slows down the scene so we can see inside the car. The question is: Who are they?

Who are they?

Lynch’s Ten Clues:

For reference, an insert inside the DVD includes ten clues to solving Mulholland Dr:

1. Pay particular attention in the beginning of the film: there are at least two clues revealed at the beginning.
2. Notice the appearances of the red lampshade.
3. Can you hear the name of the movie Adam Kesher is auditioning actresses for? Is it mentioned again?
4. An accident is a terrible event… notice the location of the accident.
5. Who gives a key and why?
6. Notice the robe, the ashtray, the coffee cup.
7. What is felt, realized, and gathered at Club Silencio?
8. Did talent alone help Camilla?
9. Note the occurrences surrounding the man behind Winkies.
10. Where is Aunt Ruth?

This is by no means a definite explanation of the movie but I think I made it clear why I consider Mulholland Dr. my top movie of the decade. Extremely few movies allow for such extensive and multi-layered analysis of the film as a whole and its individual elements. I realize that the movie might be impervious to analysis but I hope I enlightened you a little bit more about this fantastic movie.

What is your interpretation of the movie? What is the meaning of the blue box? The Monster behind Winkies? Club Silencio? Any questions or insight? Let it be known in the comment area!